1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, an image processing program, and an image processing method for displaying an image simulating a printed form of image data subject to embossing print, and more specifically to an image processing apparatus, an image processing program, and an image processing method for showing a preview allowing easy recognition of an embossed part.
2. Description of the Related Art
Today, an image forming apparatus such as a printer and a copying machine which applies electrophotography and electrostatic recording to form an embossed image using foaming toner is known.
Publicly known art for print of these types of embossed images (embossing print) include, for example, technology which uses achromatic foaming toner to print character data such as braille and image data such as a map representing topography as embossing print.
Publicly known art for achieving embossing print including a color image by coloring a foaming toner image includes art described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publications 2001-134006, 2001-134091, and 2001-194846.
In the aforementioned publicly known art, toner images each containing a color material of a predetermined color are placed on a foaming toner image in an electrophotography recording process, for example, and individual toner images placed on the foaming toner image are melted and fixed after the foaming toner image are foamed with the heat generated in the fixing process, thereby providing an embossed image.
A system configuration for realizing such embossing print includes a configuration where a personal computer (PC) and an embossing printer are connected with each other over a network, a print file where a tag and the like is used to specify a region for an embossed part is generated on the PC using different types of application software, and printing is instructed to the embossing printer.
Usually, a user interface (UI) is provided to show a print preview for reviewing a finished state when a print instruction is provided from the PC to the printer, and this UI allows repeating the review of the print state on the print preview, and then providing the print instruction, thereby obtaining a print with a desired finish.
This standard print preview provides a display faithful to a top view appearance of an image to be printed out (printed matter) as much as possible.
However, it is impossible to recognize where the embossed parts exist when the image faithful to the top view appearance of the printout is displayed as a preview in the aforementioned embossing print.
The reasons for this mainly include that the height of the embossed part on the embossing print is about some hundreds microns, the embossment is achieved by vertical protrusions with respect to the surface of the sheet, and an embossed image cannot be recognized if the embossed image underlie a normal image.
As described above, there has been such a problem that any standard print preview equipped for a PC does not provide an effective preview display for an embossing print so that how and where an embossed image is printed cannot be recognized.